History Unplugged Podcast
Listen on Your Favorite App

The Common Factors That Cause Societies To Die, From Viking Greenland to Modern Somalia

August 17, 2021
00:00 42:15
Listen on Your Favorite App

If we do not learn from the past, we're ultimately doomed to repeat it. While our society may not be on the decline just yet, everything eventually must come to an end. Sandwich Board guys with raggedly clothes are on to something, I guess?

As a professor of Sociology, as well as the Founder and First President of the American Sociological Association Section on Development, Samuel Cohn is well-versed in the mistakes of societies past. His book All Societies Die: How to Keep Hope Alive [Cornell University Press, April 2021] considers societal decline and explosions of violence in a variety of historical and contemporary settings, including the Byzantine Empire, the French Revolution and the present-day Middle East.

Cohn’s unique and humorous voice assesses the past and looks to the future with kind eyes, enabling readers to both accept the cycle of life our society is a part of and move forward with the knowledge necessary to preserve our society for as long as we can.


In an interview, Cohn can further discuss:

•The “Circle of Societal Death” – what it is, what causes it and how it connects to other societal collapses in the past and helps us understand the root causes and avoidable issues
•The triggers of societal destruction – what we should be looking for and working to change in order to avoid societal collapse in the future
•How crime, corruption, and violence have impacted the rise and fall of past societies
•Why Big Government is essential for both prosperity and for societal survival

This show is part of the Spreaker Prime Network, if you are interested in advertising on this podcast, contact us at https://www.spreaker.com/show/3101278/advertisement

More Episodes
See all episodes
Meet Your Host
Meet Your Host
Scott Rank is the host of the History Unplugged Podcast and a PhD in history who specialized in the Ottoman Empire and modern Turkey. Before going down the academic route he worked as a journalist in Istanbul. He has written 12 history books on topics ranging from lost Bronze Age civilizations to the Age of Discovery. Some of his books include The Age of Illumination: Science, Technology, and Reason in the Middle Ages and History’s 9 Most Insane Rulers.. Learn more about him by going to scottrankphd.com.
Podcasts About Us Contact Us Newsletters